Free bird James Lord Pierpont spent his life dashing through American history like it was his own one-horse open sleigh of adventure.
Born the son of a preacher, he became a Boston whaler, Navy sailor, feckless father, California dreamer, real-life rebel and Confederate cavalryman.
Pierpont also wrote songs.
He crafted bellicose but forgotten Dixieland war anthems and also one of the most familiar tunes in human history.
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Pierpont wrote the joyous winter jaunt “Jingle Bells.”
“He’d be a very fascinating subject to psychoanalyze,” Christopher Klein, a Massachusetts historian and authority on the world’s most celebrated sleigh ride, told Fox News Digital.
“He has a true rebellious streak in him.”
Yet the rebel’s song “Jingle Bells” is so embedded in mainstream culture that its first three notes alone are instantly recognizable to millions of people around the world.
“He’d be a very fascinating subject to psychoanalyze.” — Christopher Klein, historian
Frank Sinatra’s version of “Jingle Bells,” which he first recorded in 1948, is No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 this very week.
Pierpont’s composition is sandwiched between hits by contemporary superstars Taylor Swift and Doja Cat — right now, today — nearly 175 years after he wrote it.
“Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms, released in 1957, retells the tale of “riding on a one-horse sleigh,” first published by Pierpont exactly 100 years earlier.
The annual Helms hit is No. 3 today on the American music charts.
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Two American cities, Medford, Massachusetts and Savannah, Georgia, proudly offer competing claims as the birthplace of the timeless tune.
Almost everything we know about this beloved standard of American songcraft, however, is debated, wrong or misunderstood — including our faith in it as family-friendly…
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